My idea of stash ... piles of color coordinated "fat-quarters", no not my stash, bolts of garment fabrics piled up in the "garment district", no that's not my stash. My stash is ever-changing and grows with the summer as I dye more fabric and stock my shelves. Right now a peak in my stash closet would be a lot different from years ago, anything goes was the theme for many years.
Others' stash...plenty of people hoard supplies. Most avid DIYers will tell you they have a lot of supplies but they are very organized. Us sewing people can "organize" a lot of fabric too and buttons, thread, vintage scarves(to be made into something of course) and anything else I can find at a rummage sale or swap meet. I have seen estate sale loot encompass a whole Ford SUV, bags and boxes, a lifetime collection of woven cloth. I love the stuff. There are those that will save scraps the size of a finger and those that toss out whole, useless pieces left over from cutting a garment pattern.
For many years I kept my stash in an antique wardrobe with drawers on one side and a creaky, metal rod you could pull out for hanging clothes on the other. Small, tidy stacks of scraps more wasteful seamstresses would have thrown out were lined up with pride. Every group of scraps a memory, a curtain in grandma's house, a couch, a childhood costume... I have some first memories and they include fabrics.
Refined and downsized stash with hand dyed fabrics dominating. Some scrap bins, size and color coordinated. My fabric closet can get messy during and after projects, when deadline dates seem to pop off of the calendar and dance around my shoulders while I sew. I make one-of-a-kind jackets and I love micro-fiber fabrics, lately faux suede has me designing jackets in my dreams, really. Things are looking leathery in my future and my stash.
If my stash disappeared tomorrow I couldn't replace it. So many years are stacked up in that closet I can look around and find an old memory neatly wedged into it's pile waiting to unfold into a story of childhood events like matching Easter dresses and impromptu fashion shows with my sister. I'll continue to collect and stow away these pieces of my life like an historian curating for a museum. The fragments of the past represented in my collection may only be interpreted by me and may never be anything but scraps of fabric in my stash but to me the stash closet is a source of inspiration.
I am reminded of the sewing journeys taken by talented sewing people before my own trail of thread and fabric clippings started to hit the sewing room floor.
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